Calgary Stampeders' Jon Cornish speaks to coaches on a phone on the sideline during the first half of a pre-season CFL football game against the B.C. Lions in Vancouver, B.C., on June 20, 2014. CFL star running back Jon Cornish says he's ready to play Sunday in Ottawa. The league's most valuable player last season has been out of the Stampeders lineup with concussion symptoms since the season opener June 28. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

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The summer vacation is now over, and Jon Cornish can’t wait to get back to business.

Since June 28, the Calgary Stampeders star running back has been told to rest, relax his mind and sit around quietly.

For a noted busybody — one that works part-time at TD Canada Trust in his spare time — the time away was part agonizing, part reflective.

Now the break is officially over. On Wednesday, the Stamps will start preparations for the team’s first trip to Ottawa since the 2006 season. The No. 1 running back expects to be included in practice and part of the starting lineup on Sunday in the nation’s capital.

“I’m itching to work,” said Cornish after going through the team’s rundown on Monday. “I haven’t worked at the bank, including training camp, for almost three months.

“I haven’t played a football game for seven weeks. I haven’t been doing much. I like to think of myself as a hard worker. Without anything to work hard at, it’s not as fun. Yes, I’m looking forward to working again.

“This is the first summer vacation I’ve had as an adult. I was able to take care of a few things around the house. I was able to sit out and barbecue a few times. It sucked not playing football, but you have to find the positives in everything. I found a lot of positives in this experience.”

It was the hardest hit Cornish has taken in his career and certainly the biggest injury he’s suffered since becoming the Stampeders starting running back midway through the 2011 season.

Once he got past the initial shock of the concussion, Cornish tried returning to the field a handful of times, only to suffer setbacks and experience headaches. Before a Week 5 meeting with the Edmonton Eskimos, Cornish went on the six-game injured list, making his return doubtful until after the Labour Day Classic against those Eskies.

Without pressure to return, the 29-year-old felt the cloud lift.

“When I decided to go on the six-game (was the turning point),” Cornish said. “I was really pushing to get back. All I needed was time.

“To get some time on the six-game, it allowed me to let my muscles relax, and then I saw real quick progress. I felt after maybe one week on the six-game I was able to play. The concussion wasn’t that bad, but all things considered, it was good to take lots of time.”

There are new rules with the long-term injured list in the new CFL collective bargaining agreement. Once a player is on the six-game injured list, he isn’t eligible to return to practice until Week 5 of that stint. Cornish is only in Week 4, so once he practices on Wednesday, he will be coming off the six-game list early regardless, and his salary during his time away will go back on the cap.

This will be the second and final free pass the Stamps have with the six-game list after receiver Jabari Arthur returned earlier this season.

Cornish is confident about how he feels, and even believes he could have played two weeks ago. He feels his issue with league’s concussion protocol, and once he found the problem causing his headaches — whiplash causing neck strain — he was able to relieve them.

“We didn’t have my neck properly diagnosed, so I wasn’t running right,” Cornish said. “It was causing me problems. It was simple when I was told what was wrong, then it was easy to fix it. For a long time (we didn’t know). Because the CFL concussion protocol has me doing nothing, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong.”

The Stamps could get a double boost this week in the running back department. Matt Walter, who suffered a concussion replacing Cornish on July 24, went through rundown on Monday as well and should practise on Wednesday.

It’s not like the Stamps were suffering without Cornish as they won five of the six games he missed, but there are plenty of people who are relieved the two-time CFL most outstanding Canadian is coming back healthy.

For the majority of the summer, Cornish had a glimpse of what his life was like without football, so he chalks it up to another great learning experience.

“I’m always up for new challenges,” Cornish said. “This is just that. I’ve been able to discover who I am outside of football and outside of banking. I’ve always had something to define myself by. It’s nice to know who I am without those things.”

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